Saturday, July 28, 2007

I love Weird Al (In a totally heterosexual he's an awesome music dude kinda way). I'm sure you love Weird Al. You find me someone who doesn't like Weird Al and I'll show you a fruit from Guatemala. Anyways. Weird Al came here to little 'ol Saskatoon on the 26th and Riley and I were awesomely lucky enough to go. 2nd row, isle seats just off centre of the stage. What could be better than that (Well besides front row centre)? Not much. And on top of all that, it was freaking awesome. Weird Al Yankovic has got to be one of the best live performers of the generation. He sounds fantastic live (Not something you can say about many acts anymore), the show is super funny (He goes through more costume changes than Cher), he knows how to please the crowed, the band is awesome as well, and did I mention he's Weird Freaking Al? C'mon!

He played a great set of songs. New songs, old songs, everyone's favourites. From Yoda, to Fat, to Canadian Idiot and Close But No Cigar. But what topped it all off? His encore. He finished the show by playing Albuquerque. All 11 minutes of it. And what made the whole concert that much more fun, in between costume changes (Since it takes a few minutes to get alot of that stuff on), bits and clips and interviews from Al TV are played on the triple wide screen projectors. hilarious interviews with folks like Jessica Simpson, Eminem, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Avril Lavigne, even Celine Dion and Madonna.

I definitely would say that Weird Al is the second most fun I've had at a concert (Barenaked Ladies reign supreme so far) and if you EVER have a chance to go see him, GO. We even got some neat Weird Al dollars that shot out of a canon. Go us!

Anyway, I've got alot of Weird Al to listen to as I feel all happy and such...Toodles!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

I love playing Guitar Hero. It was the first game I got for my PS2 (Which I purchased in a bit of a stupor), and I've loved it ever since I got it. And with Guitar Hero III, and Rock Band on their way near the end of this year, I think I'll be a very happy boy when I get to play them for myself (Especially Rock Band). And in an effort to continue Guitar Hero's success, Activision announced earlier this year an pseudo expansion to Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80's. When I first heard about it, I was over joyed. I <3 the 80's as much as the next hippie (Well maybe more, I'm not sure how many hippies really like the 80's that much, but I sure do). From great 80's movies, to TV, to music.

Today I played Rock the 80's at Future Shop for the first time. I played 'I Ran' by A Flock of Seagulls. Normally I'll play a new song on medium so I can get the rhythm down, but I was feeling a little adventurous today, so I thought I would try hard as to give myself a little challenge. Well, I never really found that challenge. I played through it like it was on easy. But hey, maybe I'm better than I used to be? But anyways, we went to find it on the shelf to see how much it was, and Riley and I were rather shocked to see it priced at $60. Well, we won't be picking that up today, maybe we'll go rent it instead. So we went to High Tech and rented it, brought it back and proceeded start playing through career mode. Wasn't much harder than 'I Ran' was at Future Shop, and I have good controllers, unlike at Future Shop where half the buttons don't work.

We also noticed a few other things. Other than the 30 new songs (Which is about half as many as Guitar Hero II had), there basically isn't anything new at all. And is some cases there's even less than in Guitar Hero II (Besides the song count). The main characters have received some minor 80's styling, as have the menus (Queue the neon paint), but other than that it looks exactly the same. From the rest of the band to the crowd to the venues, they're all exactly the same as before. Well, there was a neon beach ball in the high school. That's it. There are also less playable characters than before, with the Grim Reaper being the only one. And Stone Henge is also not included, which is a bummer because that's easily my favourite venue. Oh, and all the unlockable guitars are the same ones from Guitar Hero II, there's nothing new there either. And there are no unlockable songs either, just the 30 from career mode.

So what do we have so far? Guitar Hero II with a thin coat of paint, half the songs, fewer characters, fewer venues, the same unlockable guitars, no unlockable songs, all for a $60 dollar price point, the same as to buy Guitar Hero on it's own (Without a controller) when it was new. For $60, it's a bit of a rip off. At $30 this would have been a great deal.

After coming to these conclusions, I also started reading some reviews and checking out what other sites on the Net had to say about Rock The 80's. It was all pretty much the same thing. So for my money, I'm glad I rented it and didn't buy it. I'll wait until it's $30-$40 before I shell out. But that's just me. I know a few people who won't mind paying $60 for what is basically $30 of content just because they love Guitar Hero that much, but I'll wait.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Speacial thanks to Terry, last week he told me that The Source was looking for someone to pick up about 15 hours of shifts a week and that I should go down and drop off a resume or something. So I did, and on Friday I had me an interview and all went well. On Monday we went for some paintballing for Mike's birthday (Which was awesome), and on Tuesday they called me again to sign some papers so I could start!

Wednesday Riley, Ham and I went to see The Tragically Hip (Also quite awesome), and today was my first day working at The Source.

So how did it go? Pretty well I'd say. I'm trying to learn how not to suck at it, and I'm sure it'll come along. The hardest part right now is using the computer to make transactions, I can never remember what I'm supposed to press to make it bend to my will. Other than that it isn't too bad, and I'm looking forward to finally making some monies again. Hooray! Anyways, my arms are cold, so I'm going to take off.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Yes, in a word, crazy awesome. "But that's two words, Steve!" That's right, but that's how awesome it is. It defies rules. Those of us who loved the transformers as kids have grown up (Well at least a little, on the outside anyways), and while many of our childhood favorites haven't, Transformers finally has. Like us, it's now bigger, louder, and knows how to kick some ass.

Though the perspective of the film changed from that of the robots themselves to the humans caught in between their conflict, that only makes it that much greater. When we were kids it was all about giant robots beating each other up, and it still is. But like I said, it's matured just as we have, and we also are shown the human side of things as we're stuck in the middle of this outer worldly conflict, and the true scale of things become greatly apparent.

Go see Transformers. Go see it 10 minutes ago, and tell me that you're going, I'll go too. Transformers deserves my attention for more than just the 2 1/2 hours it took to watch it. Watch it again and again, and then go get some toys and geek out with glee. Go now!

Monday, July 2, 2007

My Radium video is complete and should be ready for viewing very soon! HURRAH!

Update: Ok, never mind. The video is too long for YouTube, so I'll have to do a bit more work to it and probably split it into 4 parts. Hopefully it will be done soon!

UPDATE update: Ok, MySpace just got some handy points because they let super long videos be not not allowed. Woot. So there it is! The trip in a drippy nutshell! Enjoy! (No making fun of the bad job I did, it was my first time, leave my virgin mistakes alone)

UPDATE UPDATE update: Ok, so maybe this isn't working either, the video seems to get cut off. Maybe it just needs more time to process. I'm still working on it. I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!!!!!! Update: Ok, so I split the video in half and it's processing right now. I've got part 1 up above and I'll put part 2 just below this. Damnit this better work this time!

All of my Radium pictures are up and ready for the viewing! I'm working on getting all the videos edited together with nice transitions and inappropriate comments and star wipes. I'm pretty sure I won't be done any of that tonight, so maybe tomorrow. Tah tah!

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Well we got back from Radium last night at 3AM (Long story more suited for conversation than blogging) and I've got some pictures and some video to get up. The trip was pretty fun. Could have been better but could have been allot worse.

Anyway, I'll get all the pictures up and get all the video put together (In theory I'll have a full video log entry, and it'll be my first). See ya soonish!